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It was only five months ago when we reported about the first set of mobile augmented reality games coming out of Qualcomm Augmented Reality Game Studio. The studio, a partnership between Qualcomm and Georgia Tech’s Augmented Environments Lab, gives students the tools to create AR games and gives us a peek their crazy ideas. Now, a new crop of games is out of the studio’s doors, and here are my favorites:

Dodger Dodger is a simple game where you are tasked with escaping falling asteroids. This game smartly harnesses the mobile platform to add another dimension to the game. Not only does the player needs to move left and right, he also needs to move the phone back and forth in order to avoid the asteroids:

Nerdherder is obviously the bastard step child of last semaster’s Nerdferno. Instead of dodging asteroids, you need to avoid eye contact with girls in this one:

The goal of Puppy Plus is to teach your child basic math skills using a cute puppy living on a deserted island, surrounded by pirate ships. It makes perfect sense, trust me:

You can read more about these games and others coming out this spring on Qualcomm AR game studio site; Don’t miss the narwal safe sex guide.

To my many readers coming from Japan – my heart goes to you, and I hope your families are safe. It’s difficult to discuss “augmented reality” in the face of “tragic reality”, but I’ll do my best with this week’s linkfest.

This week’s video is a call for help to create the first crowed sourced AR music video. Led by students of Tokyo’s Temple University, fans of the British band Songdog are invited to contribute their own clips featuring an AR marker. According to their site (where you can find more details) “Augmented Reality is used to symbolize all that one can remember, but that is lost forever – you can see it, but you can’t touch it”. A beautiful idea that I hope will come true in spite of the unexpected challenges facing it.

Only a few weeks ago, we reported on Virtual Master Reel, an augmented reality game whose aim was catching virtual fish with an augmented fishing reel. Seems that augmented reality fishing games are trending right now, because Nintendo got one for its Nintendo 3ds platform. Video doesn’t do it justice, because the whole 3d display thingy is lost, but it still looks good. You can read more about the planned AR games for 3ds on Wired.

Route 66: A new twist on augmented reality navigation aid – you just need to follow the virtual car ahead of you.

AC130 is an AR shooting game that uses dollar bills as markers. What was once an innovative idea, is quickly becoming a standard.

This week’s video is a neat meshup between the insanely successful indie computer game Minecraft and augmented reality, by one Scott Kronick (or at least I think that is his name). Kronick, an artist by trade, came to the realization that it would be great “to hack away at and modify your city or school made of cubes”. The result is “RealCraft”:

What a better way to start the new year than playing a round of augmented golf? That’s exactly what the students at Rochester Institute of Technology thought when they came up with this game that doesn’t require an entire fairway.

Shotgun Showdown is a two players western styled shooting game which utilizes two $20 bills as an arena/required marker. I wonder whether the winner takes both bills.

If you thought that tracking dollar bills was original, than get ready for Volcano Fever, a game that uses condom wrappers as a marker. It’s more than just a weird artistic choice by the game designer. The goal of Volcano Fever is to teach proper condom use.

I understand the volcano metaphor, but what’s the octopus supposed to symbolize? … Anyway, next is, as promised, Nerdferno, a game that puts you in a God like position, determining the fate of cubicle dwellers. If you looked for original AR content, you’ve found it:

You can read more about these games and others, such as Spintopia and Bug Juice, on the studio’s website, and about previous AR games from Georgia Tech here.

This linkfest has nothing to do with Justin Bieber, and everything to do with augmented reality news bites from the last week. I’m just checking if the mere inclusion of Mr. Bieber in the title will generate more hits.

Samsung’s Bada mobile OS seems to be the hip place for AR games development. This time it’s our pals at int13 with their release of ARDefender game.

Metaio is holding a one day long conference called insideAR. I usually don’t promote such events, but they got me when they bundled it with Oktoberfest. Augmented reality and Beer, a match made in heaven?

This week’s video is a promotion video for Sekai Camera. Tonchidot, the company behind this veteran AR browser recently got a $5M from Japan’s telecom giant KDDI (though some claim that KDDI actually bought Tonchidot). And if that’s not enough, Tonchidot announced the creation of social AR game. The future looks bright for those guys: